There's been a bucketload of updates from Apple in the last week and a half.

If you're just coming back from holidays, there's plenty of downloading to be done. Still, if you've been away you probably haven't used much of your data allowance for the month - though it's a different story for those of us with student offspring that are making the most of their online freedom before the new academic year starts!

So what's on the list?

The most recent is the most important: Security Update 2010-001 for Leopard and Snow Leopard patches a diverse bunch of components including Flash Player, OpenSSL, CUPS, CoreAudio, ImageIO, Image RAW.

Most of the issues potentially allow arbitrary code execution, but the CUPS vulnerability concerns denial of service (ie, remotely forcing the printing system to crash), and the OpenSSL fix helps defend against a 'man in the middle' attack.

Note that most of the fixes are for vulnerabilities that can be exploited via maliciously formed media files - this remains a fertile hunting ground for the Bad Guys.

There's no indication that Security Update 2010-001 fixes the 'dtoa' vulnerability I wrote about last week, and that leaves me feeling a bit uneasy.

The next most significant item is probably the slightly late arrival of Windows 7 compatibility for Boot Camp. You may need to download several items for this.

Firstly, there's Boot Camp Software Update 3.1 itself, which comes in two versions for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows. Apple recommends this update whether you're running XP, Vista, or are about to install Windows 7.

(As an aside, I've been running Windows 7 on my PC for a few months now, and - touch wood - it's been very stable. The only real problem has been incompatibility with some older video hardware that I was hoping to use for a certain project.)

The next item you may need is Boot Camp Utility for Windows 7 Upgrade. This is apparently essential if you're upgrading an existing Vista installation to Windows 7.

The remaining components are hardware specific. Depending on exactly which model Mac you're using, you may also need Graphics Firmware Update 1.0 (for Windows 7 on certain iMac and Mac Pro models) or iMac Late 2009 Windows 7 Drivers (for the 21.5in and 27in iMacs).

Leaving Boot Camp aside, Apple Remote Desktop (client and admin) has been updated to version 3.3.2 with added reliability.

For pro audio users, there are updates to Logic Pro and Main Stage delivering "numerous fixes", and version 2.5 of the Unitor Family Driver.

The remaining hardware-specific updates are Firmware Restoration CD 1.8 (for Intel-based models), Mac Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.4, and Xserve EFI Firmware Update 1.2.